As a follow up to my recent post on Internal Marketing vs. Internal Branding, here’s another difference-turned-similarity between the two concepts.
Internal Marketing requires an ongoing effort for the care & feeding of customers and employees. Most people think of applying Internal Branding, however, only when they’re launching a new brand or revitalizing an old one.
But …
According to marketing & branding consultant Debra Semans, this suggests a limited view of Internal Branding:
“Too often,” she says, “companies just do internal branding when they launch a new or changed brand and then assume everyone gets it. But people forget, new people come on board [who weren’t exposed to the previous internal branding efforts], and then you get brand creep. The ideal is that it becomes part of the way they do business, their culture … you have to maintain it in order to maintain delivery of the brand promise to the marketplace.”
So Debra recommends Internal Branding be included in an organization’s ongoing training program as a “refresher course” as well as part of new employee orientation.
Makes sense to me … Internal Branding, like Internal Marketing, is not just a use-it-only-when-needed tool.